


Teenager in Death

by MusicManDon1



Category: In Death - J.D. Robb
Genre: Adult Language Here. Realistic cops and scum words., Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicManDon1/pseuds/MusicManDon1
Summary: It's spring, 2076 in New York.  16-year-old Bella Eve Freestone is on a date, and out after curfew.  Soon enough, that will be the least of her worries.  Eve and Roarke have to cope with a traumatized Bella, a frantic Mavis, a dead body ... and Eve's two sons give her precious little peace.
Relationships: Eve - Relationship, Mavis - Relationship, McNab, Peabody - Relationship, Roarke - Relationship, leonardo - Relationship
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. Teenager in Death

The tiny blonde high school girl felt like she was walking on top of the world. Were all April nights this beautiful, she wondered as she strolled along beside the tall, black-haired boy in the leather jacket and black high tops. Part of her knew better. She wasn’t a child after all. She was just a few months past her 16th birthday. She was wearing the high heels she’d gotten from Peabody, one of many people she dearly loved and considered her relatives. She knew some April nights in New York, it could rain until you looked and felt like a drowned rat. Her parents took wildly different approaches when she would come home on those nights and hang her soaking wet coat on the nearest railing. Her mom, who was OK about a lot of things, would freak and tell her she would catch pneumonia. Let her sneeze a couple times and she’d be off to Dr. Dimatto. Her daddy took another approach which made him the maggest of mag daddies a girl could want. He would sweep her right off her feet and cuddle her close like he had when she was a child. He was mag enough not to do that in front of her friends, yuck, but in their house she liked a good hug from him, followed by a large cup of her uncle Dennis’s hot chocolate when they had any, or a Pepsi when they didn’t.  
And why was she thinking about rainy April nights when this one was so beautiful? She was walking hand in hand with Charlie Marcano. Magalicious Crazy handsome Charlie Marcano. He had been going to her school, but She hadn’t really seen_ him until a few weeks ago, and then OMG! All That curly black hair just for starters. When they got where they were going, she would reach up (or get him to sit down) so she could lose her hands in those curls. Standing up would be a reach, since he was almost six feet tall and she wasn’t even close to that. Oh well, her daddy was even taller and her Mom had fallen in love with him.  
Charlie’s eyes were as black as his hair. A good long look into those eyes could make her lose her mind. Out of the blue, into the black. That was a line from some old song her uncle Morris played on his horn. Why did people need to use illegals if just looking at the right somebody … oh well, no need to think about that. She never had or never would touch illegals.  
Charlie’s face … you couldn’t describe it. She thought all teenagers had pimples like her brother, but Charlie’s face was a smooth miracle. Then those shoulders under that black leather, OMG times a million. She’d spent hours upon hours talking about Charlie with her friends and absorbing what they said about their boyfriends. Charlie wasn’t her boyfriend (not yet) but she thought she would make that happen. She wanted that, and so much more. She wanted him to be her “high school sweetheart.” Nobody in her group used ancient slang like that, but she’d heard it from her daddy and some of her uncles. It sounded so perfect, she wanted Charlie to fill that role. She wondered what high school sweethearts did back when people used that expression-did they go out riding dinosaurs together? The idea had her giggling. She gave Charlie a smile and held his hand tighter.  
“What you lookin’ at, doll,?” he muttered. He rarely got loud and he sure wouldn’t get loud tonight, she hoped. Loud brought the grown-ups and maybe the cops, considering they were walking in Central Park.  
“I’m looking at You, Charlie,” she almost whispered. “The two of us, You and your doll under a lover’s moon.”  
“What the fuck? Lover’s moon? Did that guy O’Neill name it that when he landed on it?”  
“I don’t know why they call it a lover’s moon. I heard it from one of my uncles.”  
She wasn’t about to tell him the guy who landed on the moon was Neil Armstrong. She might, some other time, but this was no night to correct him, and who cared? The moon landing was more than a hundred years ago—ancient history like the pilgrims.  
“The park is maybe the only place in the city where we can see the stars. There must be a zillion of them tonight, and the full moon.”  
“You could see them from the top of a skyscraper, but who the fuck wants to? The stars ain’t nothin’.”  
“Charlie, they’re pretty.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes. “Stop here a second. I want to look straight up.”  
She stopped gracefully, even on her high heels. Charlie nearly stumbled, but caught himself. They both smiled. She put her arms around his neck. She smiled up at him and put one hand in his hair. She leaned in close.  
Now his head was spinning. This beat drinking his uncle’s home brew. This left both Push and Zoner way behind, and he thought he liked using those. Wonder if Bella would enjoy them. He bet she would. He’d been with girls before, but this beauty was way above his normal range. He heard she kept her nose in the air when his friends walked by, and some of his guys had a lot more going than he had. Well, tonight he had it going faster and faster by the second.  
“Kiss me, Charlie,” she murmured.  
She didn’t have to ask twice. He was no rookie, but kissing her … well, he’d never had Zeus but he guessed it must feel like this. All the guys had told him this girl wouldn’t kiss him with a stunner to her head. Well, he’d tell all of them, especially Juan and Pedro. They ragged him the loudest. The kiss seemed to go on forever. His friends, his world, everything was gone except the two of them.  
She pulled back, gave him an affectionate shoulder bump.  
“Let’s sit on the grass, Charlie. We can look up at the moon and all those stars. Then I want to ask you something.”  
“Let’s,” was all he could say, and even that took an effort. She kissed like she knew what she was about. Pedro said she had told him to go fuck himself, and Pedro never missed. Juan had her pegged for a stone bitch. Well, Charlie had something to tell both those guys.  
They sat on the grass. Now both her hands were in his hair while they stayed joined at the lips. He was making a mess out of her hair, then touching her face. He never thought this face would be in his hands, with her mouth and his in what he hoped would be an endless battle. His hands touched her neck, rubbed it gently. Then he got to her shoulders. A little skinny for him, but still, she was going along with every move he made. Bella thought She could spend days like this, wildly kissing him and playing with his hair. She didn’t need more, not yet. She knew this was what she wanted tonight. Just hours and hours of …  
“Hey,” she said sharply, pushing him back. “You’re not touching there yet. Don’t touch …  
That was when they heard the shriek. She figured people on Mars could hear it. It was louder than a police siren and could split your head like a car alarm. It was a woman screaming.  
She was up in a blink, grabbing Charlie by the arm. She ran toward the sound. Charlie paused, seemed vaguely lost. She turned sharply and grabbed his wrist more tightly to direct him.  
“Hurry up, Charlie,” she said. “That wasn’t somebody having fun. Move it, for the love of God. When we see what’s wrong, I’m tagging my aunt. She’s a cop.”  
“Cops we don’t need. We’ll both be grounded until the next century.” With that, Charlie broke her grip, turned and ran. The last she saw of him, he was leaping a fence to get out of the park.  
Could you believe that? What kind of sweetheart would run away from trouble? A sweetheart should also be a hero. She saw the ground ahead of her had been trampled and a picnic table knocked over. She knew she shouldn’t get any closer and definitely not touch anything. She put her purse on a picnic table that was still standing, pulled out a pen light, although the moon and stars were probably bright enough to see by. She pointed her light under the bench … and saw. …  
Oh My God, that was a …  
Then she was screaming, maybe louder than the dead girl she was looking at.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Told from Eve's POV. Eve and Roarke drive into a situation Bella is too upset to describe at first.

Straight up midnight! Saturday_ night_ straight up midnight! Lieutenant Eve Dallas glowered at her link, then knitted her brows.   
“Lights 10%. You, (pointing at Yeats, ) get gone.” The cat gave her his usual disdainful stare and leapt from the bed to her sleep chair.   
Roarke, Why would Bella be tagging me at Midnight?”   
“Answer the link and ask the child,” her husband replied mildly. He was past 50 but could still go from dead asleep to full alert as fast as his veteran cop wife. Roarke, with that Irish magic in his voice and his twinkling blue eyes could get away with saying … and doing … things most men couldn’t. She answered the link, but not before telling the link “Block video.”   
“Dallas. What’s wrong, Bella?”   
The reply was an incoherent wail. “Oma God, Oma God, Oma God,” she kept repeating. Meantime she was dead pale and her eyes poured tears.   
“Bella, you need to pull it together. Roarke, trace this.”   
“Already on it.”   
She turned back to the link. “Bella, are you hurt? Are you in trouble?”   
“Dallas, unblock the video. I need to see you. she’s … she’s … Oh My God!”   
Bella’s shriek had Eve pulling desperately away from the link. She used to shriek like that as a kid, but those were shrieks of joy. Mavis had told her about some of Bella’s teenage meltdowns, but this was raw panic. It had to be something wrong with Mavis. What else?   
“The Trace worked. She’s in the park. Just a loud shout from us.”   
“Unblock video. We’re coming,” Eve said. “Stay with me, Bella.” She put the link on pause.   
“Walk and listen, Roarke. I’ll keep her talking unless she asks for you.  
“I’m with you,” he said, making the simple statement a declaration of unity and love all at once. She knew only a few men who could do that-Dennis Mira, Leonardo, not many others.   
Eve clicked the link off pause, then put on her cop voice. “Bella Freestone, I need to know where you are and what happened. Take a few deep breaths and tell me. Roarke, tag Mavis.”   
“Oma God, no! Don’t tag Mom. She’ll skin me.”   
That was the idea, Eve thought as they ran to her D L E. Now Bella was trying to focus. Eve wouldn’t know for sure what the trouble was until she found the child, but changing Bella’s focus might help just enough.   
“No promises, kid. Now, I heard you say “She.” Who is she and what’s her trouble?" Eve heard Bella breathing deeply as Rork opened her door, then ran to his side and jumped in. He was 4 years older than her and still nimble as a cat, Eve thought with a certain amount of envy.   
“It’s not my Mom. This lady, She’s dead. She’s so totally dead,” said Bella when she could talk.   
OK, this was familiar territory to Eve. She had almost 30 years of brutal experience with the NYPSD. She had refused captain’s bars on 3 separate occasions under 2 different commanders, one of whom was a father to her in every way that meant anything. She wanted to solve homicides, always had, always would. But how did Bella get mixed up with a dead body?   
“Bella, who’s so totally dead? where are you in the park?”   
“I don’t know who the dead woman is. She’s just all, … oh Dallas, all gooshy, you know.”   
She knew better than most, Eve thought. A cop lifer knew Better than any teenager should have to know about what a dead body looked like, felt like, smelled like. For the millionth time, she was glad to have Roarke on a late night call going into an uncertain situation. He was packing, which was technically against the law but the former thief was a hero to most of the cops at Central. What was a banned weapon among friends?   
“Roarke, if we’re that close, can you triangulate with her link?”   
“If it wasn’t our darling Bella, I wouldn’t allow such an insult from my wife. I’m drawing a bead on her as we drive. I’ve texted Mavis with the emergency code. Keep her talking, Lieutenant.”   
“OK,” she told Bella. “Talk to me about where you are. When we get there, we’ll talk about other stuff.”   
“Mom’s gonna want to talk about other stuff. All kinds of other stuff. I’ll be in such deep shit …”   
“You can worry about that later. Tell me where you are. NOW!”  
OK, lemme see. I’m near the castle. You know, like they have some picnic tables and the volleyball thing. I’m right next to the volleyball net.”   
“Got it,” Roarke said so they both could hear. “We’re inbound, darling Bella. Our ETA is 2 minutes.”   
“E T … OK, got it. Estimated time of arrival.”   
“There’s a canny lass,” he said.   
“You’re almost as good as Peabody when it comes to women in hysterics,” Eve said after putting the link on pause again.   
“”Almost? Almost? See when I leave my warm bed at Midnight to be insulted.”   
“You can’t get enough of it,” said Eve. Then taking the link off pause, she heard Bella’s voice rising toward hysteria again.   
“Dallas? did this piece of shit link break down on me?”   
“That link is working well enough that I heard what you just said, Bella. I just wanted a word with Roarke. I can see the castle and we’re looking for you.”   
“I’ve got her,” said Roarke. “You see there where that red picnic table was knocked down?”   
“Got it. We’re here now, Bella. You can turn off your link.”   
Eve had hardly gotten out of the car when Bella grabbed her and held her fiercely.  
“Dallas, I never saw anybody who was all gooshy like that. I just never …   
“Give Eve a minute, darling,” said Roarke, putting a gentle hand on Bella’s shoulder. “Give us a cuddle. I’ve seen the occasional dead body in my life, and when I can, I cuddle the Lieutenant after.” He'd done more than see dead bodies, but Bella wouldn't learn that from him.   
“Oh, Roarke,” was all Bella said before dissolving in fresh tears.   
“She got an eyeful,” said Eve. “This is a DB all right. Stabbed Several times, then it looks like the scumbag stomped on her face. Call it in.”   
“Dallas gave me a job to do,” said Roarke as he walked Bella to a picnic bench. “I can stop here with you and call for backup. Soon enough, your parents will be here.”   
“I know it. I don’t know who means to give me a worse skinning—Dallas or Mom.”   
“It could be a tie. While nobody kicks arse like Darlin’ Eve does, your mother knows where to plant her high heels. Who gets to have the first go at you depends on what you were up to. I’d ask you that very thing if you were my daughter. Dallas must ask you because it’s her job.”   
“You don’t have a daughter,” Bella said with the first hint of a smile. “You guys have Jack and Ryan, the best little cousins a girl ever had.”  
“And I’ll be after telling them that if I can stop them from demolishing the house for two seconds,” Roarke said, finally getting a laugh from Bella. Adding just a little extra Irish in his voice never failed to make her smile. “Now, I’ll tag Cop Central or my beloved Lieutenant will have me hauled away in restraints.”   
“Never happen,” said Bella. She leaned against the bench, squeezing Roarke’s shoulders while he used his link. After tagging Cop Central, he pocketed the link and spent a moment eyeing Bella as if she were his daughter.   
“Somebody made a right mess of your hair and makeup. Aren’t you a bit young for such goings-on?”   
Bella blushed for the first time that evening.   
“I’m 16, Roarke. No way you forgot that. You and Dallas gave me the maggest sweet 16 bash in the history of the world. All my friends said so.”   
“So we did. I need a reminder now and then."   
“Roarke, I could use you to be my Peabody until the real one gets here,” Eve called as she got to her feet. These hours weren’t as easy to handle as they once were, she thought. 2076 and they still couldn’t do much for her aching knees, short of replacing them. .   
“All right, Eve. You’ve got your pretend Peabody although I can’t say her pink boots would look so well on me. What do you want me to do?”   
“Same thing you always do when you pretend to be Peabody.”  
“I so would like a chocolate doughnut, but one sniff would make my arse look like a blimp.”   
“Not that, Ace. I meant, Witness while I record the scene. Any sign of Mavis and Leonardo, by the way?”   
“5 minutes out. Our Bella’s going to have some explaining to do.”   
“You talk to Mavis when she gets here. I want her to do some thinking before punishing Bella. Yes, she was out after curfew. But for all her crying on the link, she didn’t touch the body. She’ll tell me on the record, but I’d bet you that chocolate doughnut she didn’t put a finger on the DB.”   
"I didn't touch," Bella said.   
"My doughnut. Your ass is safe. I just wish they’d hurry up. I don’t like leaving Bella alone, but I need you here.”   
“I can see our Bella and I could hear her give a good shout if I was a mile away.”   
“She has her mother’s voice all right. Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve and civilian consultant Roarke on the scene of homicide at the south end of Central Park, sector 11. Body is Dayton, Marcy Melanie, age 21, T O D 23:55 April 14, 2075. Primary finds knife wound to the chest and blunt force trauma to the face and torso. M.E. to determine COD. Central was duly notified by Roarke, Detective Peabody will assist me ASAP.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve needs_ a statement from Bella.  
> But Mavis is coming, and is she pissed!  
>   
> Without Roarke and Leonardo, Eve might not get what her job requires from Bella, a young witness to an adult crime.

Fresh shrieks behind her almost had Eve reaching for her weapon. Since it was Mavis, she turned her recorder off. Bella didn’t go wild with her hair the way Mavis did. While Bella kept it blonde, Mavis’s hair was flaming red tonight. It matched the flushed face beneath angry sapphire blue eyes. She could imagine smoke pouring out of Mavis’ ears. Mavis always looked like she had just thrown something on, but tonight she looked even more disheveled than she looked on her famous music vids. Her hair was as disarranged as Bella’s was. Had Eve noticed what a mess Bella’s hair was before now? Now she had to stop Mavis before she went on a rampage. She needed Bella’s statement. Mavis already had a good head of steam built up.  
“How dare you, young lady. You scared your father and me half to death. Look at him. I mean it, look at him.”  
“Darling, I’m all right,” said the ace fashion designer and oversized love of Mavis’ life, taking a few steps back from his wife. It turned out to be a wise move.  
“God damn it, Leonardo, you weren’t all right when we got the text. Neither was I and I’m still not all right. Bella Eve, What did you think you were doing?”  
“Mavis, I need to …”  
“Shut the fuck up, Eve.”  
Mavis rarely tried to order Eve around, or swear at her. The shock had her step back a pace.  
“Ladies,” Leonardo said adding a rare touch of steel to his gentle voice. Eve knew he didn’t like confrontations and usually hung out either with Roarke or McNab when Mavis and Bella went toe to toe. This one time, he was stepping up to help her cause, whether he knew it or not. Eve knew it and loved him for it.  
“Mavis, I absolutely need a statement right now from Bella.”  
“I don’t care what you need. My daughter’s in trouble for sure, she’s in trouble with me big time. But you’re not treating her like a criminal.”  
“Mavis,” Roarke took her by the shoulders. “Bella walked into something much too big for her. She saw something nobody her age should have to see. You’ll hand out your punishment and the Lieutenant and I will back you up 100%. But you’ve got to let Eve get her statement here, while the child remembers. Then she’ll want one tomorrow after the girl has had a bit of rest.”  
“I’m right here, and I’m not a child,” Bella spoke up. She almost sounded normal, Roarke thought.  
Mavis stepped back, breathed deeply several times and looked at her daughter.  
“Bella, you’re my child from birth to earth. Roarke says you have to give a statement. Dallas will explain what that means. Dallas, I’m sorry I tried to get in your way. You need a statement, you’ll get one.”  
“No problem, Mavis. What’s a little obstruction of justice on your record.” That earned her a smile.  
“Roarke saw to it that I don’t have a record and we both know it.”  
“What record,” said Roarke, all innocence.  
“Bella, there’s no place more comfortable than that bench you’re sitting on. I’ll take your statement from there. Roarke, go to the car and get us both some coffee. Do you have any of that hot chocolate we got from Mr. Mira? If so, pour one for Bella. Also bring that chocolate donut I mentioned.”  
“Dennis made enough to fill every AutoChef we’ve got before they left.”  
“They left? What do you mean, they left?”  
“Gone on holiday in England, if I recall. Or was it Italy?”  
“Both,” Bella said. “Uncle Dennis promised me something from London and Venice.”  
“As if,” said Mavis. “You’ll still be on restriction when they get back. Maybe until you’re 21.”  
“For now, I’ll get drinks for all. Black coffee for you Leonardo, and Mavis, one of those purple smoothies you like which Eve tells me are revolting?”  
“Oh, I guess That works for me, Roarke. You sure know how to calm a lady down.”  
“He sure helped me,” said Bella. “I just freaked when I saw … but Rork did what Rork does and I can think straight again. That was mega scary.”  
“The dead in real life are way different from the dead people in books or even in vids,” said Eve.  
“Except for the mag zombie vids. Those zombies rule.”  
“You just gave me another reason to be mad,” said Mavis. “Are you trying to make my head explode?”  
Bella figured her best tack was to try and change the subject.  
“Dallas, I guess I have to tell the truth, the whole truth, … and whatever else it is.”  
“Just like that, Bella. That part is just like on TV.”  
“Oh my God,” Bella said, now with more resignation than panic.  
Eve read her the revised Miranda.  
“Do you understand that, Bella?”  
“Yes. They taught us what it means in social studies class at school. All That stuff you said protects me since I didn’t really do a crime.”  
“I’ll be the judge of that,” muttered Mavis.  
“You’ll get your turn, Mavis. Just this once, I’m the headliner in this session of “Who Interviews Bella.” And as for the Miranda, It’s there to protect the innocent … well, pretty much innocent,” she said with a scowl at Bella’s disheveled hair and makeup.  
“So, the best time to start is your curfew, which I happen to know is 23:00, also known as 11 PM to you. Just by the way, Mavis, when it got to 23:15 or so, why didn’t either you or Leonardo tag me?”  
“15 minutes, Mom? Really?”  
“15 minutes Really, Bella. And yes, Dallas, I should have. I’m not really giving a statement. Do I have to tell you what my moon pie and me were doing just then?”  
“EEEEW,” said both Eve and Bella in stereo. To which Eve added “I seriously don’t want to know. Isn’t 5 kids enough?”  
“It wasn’t about having any more children,” Leonardo said. Then, in a dreamy voice, “It was about showing my turtledove that after so many years I’m still in love with her beyond all reason.”  
“Leonardo,” Mavis said, smiling up at her giant of a husband.  
Eve smiled at Bella. It looked like both of them were struggling not to gag. She just loved that kid, but she had to swallow that down until the statement was on record. She took a few deep breaths, took a long look at the victim, and turned back to Mavis, her eyes all cop.  
“You two still should have set an alarm.”  
“And we do, most of the time.”  
“Mom,” said Bella while giving Mavis a serious eye roll.  
“Most of the time is a load of shit. We use our security all the time because most of the time leaves fucking great big holes for somebody to come in and take our stuff. I’ll talk to you two in detail about that some other time. It’s your turn, Bella. You don’t live anywhere near here. Roarke and I both know that. So how did you come to be here after curfew?”  
“I went to the vids with Charlie,”  
“Which I knew about,” said Mavis. “We had a deal you’d be back by 11.”  
“I know it,” said Bella. “I told him we’d both get in trouble.”  
“In trouble doing what,” asked Eve. Normally Bella had plenty to say, in person or on social media. Not tonight.  
“He didn’t want to go home after the vid. It was a crappy vid, so he said we should bail and go somewhere.”  
Just a little sarcasm wouldn’t hurt right about now, Eve thought.  
“Why not go somewhere like, oh I don’t know, to another vid, or go have pizza and fizzies, like half the teenagers in the city?” …”  
“We never thought of that, Dallas. I saw how nice the weather was, so we took the subway up here, … do I really have to tell every little thing?”  
“Yes, you do,” replied Eve, remembering it was Bella and trying for more patience than she was used to giving out.  
“Oh well, we wanted to go somewhere … really I suggested we go somewhere alone, out in the open. It was such a pretty night, with the full moon and all the stars. You call it a lover’s moon, Daddy.”  
“I do. I told your mother about a lovers’ moon.”  
“Back to now, Bella. You thought you’d gaze at the moon and the stars from here so the buildings wouldn’t be in your way. Next step …”  
“When we got to the park,” Bella’s cheeks grew redder by the second. “I just wanted to kiss him.”  
“Bella Eve,” Mavis tried not to shout, knowing if she really let it go, her voice could be heard in Queens.  
“Kissing a boy is the least of your worries,” said Eve. “You’ve kissed one before now, haven’t you?”  
“Yeah, but … I thought Charlie would be The One.” She drew air quotes around the words “The One.”  
“I’ve been wanting to kiss him more than other boys because of his cute face, and I wanted to play with his curls, but I didn’t want people to see us.”  
“You thought he’d be the one what? You’re losing me, kid.”  
Roark gave Bella a wink behind Eve’s back. He had a pretty good idea where this was going, and considering Bella’s looks, he thought this sort of thing was overdue.  
“Oh, all right. I wanted him to be my high school sweetheart. I was going to ask him to go steady if he was a good kisser, and oh wow, he so totally is. But … but then …”  
“OK, now we’re getting to it. What ended your little kissing session?”  
“We heard An awful yell. When I heard that, I knew what you would have done, Dallas. I jumped up, grabbed Charlie’s arm, told him I was going to tag my aunt who was a cop.”  
“Where is Bonnie Prince Charlie now,” asked Roarke.  
“Prince Who?”  
“He means the guy you were kissing. Why isn’t he here?”  
“He ran away. The second I said I was tagging a cop, he let go my hand and booked. I don’t want a sweetheart who runs away from trouble. We didn’t know it was a dead body. He would have run like that even if somebody was just breaking windows in the castle. He should have stuck by me.”  
“Absolutely he should,” said Roarke. “His young manhood was tested and found wanting, darling Bella. There’s a lot that goes into making a boy a man. Is he brave and strong. Like you said yourself, will he stand by you in time of trouble.”  
“Roarke, let’s get this over with so Mavis can take Bella home to bed where she belongs. So, let’s make sure we have this clear. Charlie ran off before or after you saw the DB?”  
“The … oh, the dead body, yeah. He was gone before I found her.”  
“Did you say you were going to tag me in particular, or just “A cop?”  
“I didn’t name names. I just said I was going to tag my aunt who was a cop. You know I was going to tag you right from the jumps. Mom and Dad told me that a million times. Call Dallas and call 911 … OOPS! I forgot that part.”  
“Rork did that, so you get a pass on that. It isn’t every day you see a dead body.”  
“I could never be a cop. I hope it’s a long, long time, like forever, before I see another DB, especially one who looks like that. Daddy, it’s so awful.” She practically burrowed into Leonardo’s lap.  
Eve waited a moment, then gestured to Leonardo to give Bella a little room. She stayed by his side, holding one of his hands tightly, though as big as those hands were, he probably didn’t notice. Eve pushed ahead.  
“Professionals like Dr. Morris make the dead look presentable at funerals. You’re seeing this woman before Dr. Morris works his magic. You remember him, right?”  
“Dr. Morris. Sure, the guy who plays the horn. Remember when he let Donnie try to play it? Major earache city.”  
“That’s Dr. Morris. Now this is very, very important and I have to say again, I need the truth. Did you touch the body?”  
“No, Dallas. I couldn’t have. Like totally Not even one finger. I mean, like really, I’m surprised I didn’t boot.”  
“Good thing you didn’t. Even trained cops sometimes do the first time they see a body that isn’t a training droid. Now Bella, the dead woman is Marcy Dayton. She’s 21. Have you ever seen her before, anywhere?”  
Roarke stepped in close, signaled Eve to step a few paces away from Bella.  
“Lieutenant,” he nearly whispered. “I know that young lady, where Bella in all likelihood doesn’t.”  
She pitched her voice as low as his.  
“You know a woman that young? Rork, will we need to have a private chat later?”  
“I’d welcome one, but we won’t begin it in front of Bella. This girl works at the market where I often get supplies when you bring half of Cop Central to our house for a full Irish.”  
“Did we hear full Irish at your house,” said EDD Lieutenant Ian McNab. Behind him, puffing ever so slightly was Eve’s longtime partner, Peabody. How come neither of them did anything about their twin cases of bedhead? Peabody in particular looked as disarranged as Bella. She took a long look at Bella, who was focused on her parents for the moment.  
“Not this time, McNab,” said Eve. “You don’t need to be here. You could have stayed home with the kids. There’s no need for an e-man here.”  
“The droid is set to activate if the kids need her. With them down for the night, I go where Peabody goes.”  
“Peabody, The DB is the lady Rork buys our food from when the division comes around for breakfast briefings.”  
“Marcy?” After nearly 20 years on the job, Peabody’s face rarely registered as much as mild shock, but it did now.  
“You know her,” asked Eve.  
“Somerset asks me to do your shopping when I’m off duty, and when he does, I see Marcy as often as not. Her folks run the market and she started working for them straight out of high school.”  
That was her partner in a nutshell, Eve thought. Somerset would never see 80 again, or 85 for all she knew. In spite of all the medical advances the 21st century had wrought, a man of 80something still sometimes felt his age. He would trust Peabody who was as reliable as the day was long, and who liked shopping, any kind of shopping. To Peabody, Heaven was probably endless stores where all the goodies were on sale. To Eve, that was an unspeakable version of Hell.  
“OK, Peabody-you replace Roarke. Seal up, we’ll see if the vic was robbed. Tag the sweepers and call for the dead wagon.”  
“I got the tags, Dallas,” said McNab.  
While Peabody sealed her hands and pink boots, Eve gave her the hairy eyeball.  
“You took longer than usual getting here. Where were you two, and don’t tell me sex was involved in any way, shape or form, especially not in front of Bella.”  
“It wasn’t, exactly. We were at the Knicks’ game, and it went into triple overtime.”  
“You two went to the Garden for a playoff game? What about, perhaps staying home and watching it on screen?”  
“Nothing like being there.”  
As Eve saw it, McNab was way too cheerful for a cop who’d been called after Midnight. He also couldn’t keep the grin off his face.  
“I gotta say though, riding the subway back, a million people pressed me awful close to She-Body, and reminded me of a few things I maybe sort of forgot. if we didn’t get the tag from you just when we did, we might have been …  
“Stop right there, McNab. How many times am I going to be labor coach, between Peabody and Mavis?”  
“You asked, L T. Anyhow, we should have the morgue wagon in 5, the sweepers 10 after that.”  
“That works.”  
“No purse here except Bella’s, no wrist unit on the DB, no loose credits. Somebody didn’t have to kill her if he got everything she was carrying.”  
“Peabody, have I told you people are fucked up?”  
“Dallas,” said Mavis, showing Eve where Bella had picked up her eye roll.  
“She’s heard that word by now, Mavis. You know, Peabody, I’ll have to send a text to the Commander. I have to close this sector of the park and maybe more.”  
“That’ll get the Mayor into it,” Peabody said.  
“You think Feeney can’t get the Mayor off his ass? He was McNab’s boss for how many years? That fella, Officer Holloway held him hostage back when. He can handle one overly pompous politician.”  
“Yeah, L T, I know he can do it,” said McNab. I just wish he didn’t have to. Closing down even a sector of the park …”  
“Don’t remind me. I’ll get chapter and verse from him. Whitney certainly would have said his piece. I closed the whole park at least once on his watch. Boy, did I hear about that, and Feeney will singe my ears over this.”  
“The Groom,” Peabody said. They all remembered that serial killer.  
“Let me finish up with Bella. McNab, keep the scene secure. Peabody, you know what else I need.”  
“Dallas, can I have just a minute with Bella?”  
“Oh, I guess I can do some of your work, considering how long I’ve been carrying you.”  
“You and what fork lift?”  
Peabody thought that was fairly brilliant considering it was close to 01:00. There was ample room to share the bench with Bella.  
“Hi Peabody,” Bella said, giving the sturdy Peabody a strong hug.  
“Hey kid, I guess you had a night tonight.”  
“I did. I wish I hadn’t. I should have just gone home. We ditched the vid and …”  
“I have that part, Bella. I’ll let you share with Peabody another day. Normally you shouldn’t tell about this kind of thing, but Peabody, well, she’s Peabody. You won’t forget tonight for a while, if ever. And don’t think you will. I know better.”  
“But Dallas, you’re used to it. You see dead bodies all the time.”  
“I still don’t forget them, not after more than 25 years. Now, we’ll just finish up so you and your parents can get some sleep. I certainly need some.”  
She asked her last few questions. Bella answered clearly and simply. Eve didn’t see or hear any evasion. While Bella liked being dramatic like any teenager, Mavis had done better teaching her oldest child not to lie than most parents could manage. Even Bella’s kid brother Donnie was more likely to tell lies than she would. Mavis had come to Eve more than once looking for an ear to hear her after she’d gone a round with Donnie. He was only a year younger, but it was hard to imagine that he and Bella were brother and sister. And what would happen when the other 3 became teenagers? The twins, Lacey and Leo would cross that line next year. Mikey, The youngest was still a baby, (well, he was 7.) Think of that later.  
“Dallas, ending interview. Record off. She’s all yours, Mavis.” She turned off her recorder and stood, taking a minute to stretch out. The park benches were the Wrath of God. Her back told her that simple fact every time she sat on one.  
“Thanks, Dallas. As for you, Bella, you get a night’s sleep tonight. We’ll go a round or two in the morning.”  
Bella sent Eve a pleading look.  
“Forget it, kid. You made yourself a mess. I got your statement. Your mom can take it from here. You know better than to even ask us for any help on this one.”  
“I guess. Good night, Dallas. Thanks for the hot chocolate, Roarke. It’s even better than kisses. See you whenever, Peabody, McNab.”  
“Assuming you’re not grounded until none of us are alive,” said McNab, giving a wicked grin to Bella and her family. They left the park with Leonardo.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mavis gives Bella a preview of the lecture she'll get the next day.   
>  Roarke and Eve discuss the evening's misadventure.   
>  They're old now, so don't look for any wild sex scenes.

Leonardo escorted his wife and daughter to one of his vans. He opened the back door for both Bella and Mavis, wanting them to be side by side for the lecture he was certain would begin now, not in the morning. He could let things wait. He could wait for days, even weeks for some model to choose one of his designs. Waiting was his game, not his wife’s since she was no good at it.   
“Bring the hot chocolate. I won’t let you waste it since you’ve got it. Dennis makes it better than anybody I know. You can finish it in the car. If you spill any on the seat, I’ll add that onto your tab.”   
“Mom, I wouldn’t. What would Uncle Dennis say?”   
“He wouldn’t say what I would. He rarely uses those words. You’ll hear a few tomorrow. You’re old enough to be kissing boys, you’re old enough to get the kind of talking-to Dallas used to give me when she arrested me.”   
“You’re kidding, Mom. No way Dallas arrested you.”   
“Would I joke about that? After tonight, you know some things just aren’t funny.”   
“Still, I can’t see you in handcuffs. Getting marched off to a jail cell and locked up …”   
“I got arrested, put in handcuffs and locked up because I did a ton of bad things when I should have been in school. Why do you think I lean on you so hard about going to school, doing your homework, all that.”  
“I get that. My grades are good.”   
“And I want them to stay that way. I want you to do well enough to go to college, Bella. I don’t want a boy ruining that, especially after what you told Dallas about Charlie running away. I’ve heard you mention his name before now. What’s his last name?”   
“Marcano.”   
“I’ll text that to Dallas. It really is late or she never would have forgotten to ask you that.”   
“Mom, I don’t want him to be my sweetheart anymore, but I don’t want him to get in trouble. He was kissing me when the lady got killed. He didn’t do it.”   
“Whatever. I’m texting Dallas anyway. He should have been brave enough to be a witness, like you were. I’ll bet he heard that woman scream like you did, if she was as loud as you said.”   
“it was, Mom. I’ve heard you scream louder, but that was right up there. I didn’t feel brave. I was crying on the link when I tagged Dallas.”   
“But what did you do when Dallas wanted your statement,” Leonardo asked as he guided the van through the night. He wasn’t a reckless driver at any time, but he fairly babied the big vehicle downtown while his girls discussed things in the back seat.   
“Roarke was so nice to me, he got me to calm down. I know why Dallas loves him so much.”   
“So do I, Bella. Giving a statement is a brave thing to do. You and I still have to go a round tomorrow, but if you ran off the way Charlie Marcano did, you would be in more trouble from your father and I than you are now.”   
“You can count on that,” added Leonardo. “Both of us had to give statements to Dallas long ago, before you were born. As scared as we both were, do you think we ran away from doing what was right?”   
“No, I’m sure you didn’t run, Daddy. Did you find a … like a dead person?”   
“I did, but it’s a story I won’t tell you tonight, maybe never. Are you going to tell those friends of yours—Ashley, Lia, Crazy Betsy …”   
“Betsy isn’t crazy.”   
“All the same, think real hard and tell me if you’re going to tell those girls how you found a dead body. Do you think that makes you somebody special?”   
“No, Daddy. it doesn’t make me feel special. And I couldn’t tell them. I just couldn’t.”   
“That’s how it should be,” said Mavis. “You think on it, and if you want to talk to Father Daley, that’s your choice. That’s like telling Dallas or Peabody for the same reason. Father Daley can’t tell anybody else but God himself. Now We’re home. Darling, lock the garage. I’m off to bed, and so are you, Bella. It’s almost 2 in the morning. Just you let me see a light on, and you know what happens. As it is, Dallas wants you at Cop Central to give another statement in the afternoon.”   
“Yes, Mom,” said Bella. Maybe she couldn’t tell the girls, but she would tell her diary tomorrow. She couldn’t write in the dark, but she’d do it then. Did she ever have a lot to write. 

“I wondered when Bella would scream for help of some kind,” Roarke said as he removed his New York black sweater. “I’ve been waiting for teenage foolishness. A brew too many perhaps, just possibly a badly-considered whiff of zoner, But I wouldn’t have thought she’d manage to find a dead body.”  
“Jamie Lingstrom did at her age. so did your cousin Sean back in Ireland, and he was a lot younger than she is now. Of course, he had those 3 mutts with him-they really found that woman. Something about us, Roarke. We draw dead bodies.” On a normal night, she would have mentioned that Roarke had employed a corpse for decades, but this wasn’t the night. Roarke was bound to tell Somerset about Bella’s late night excursion, which was a discussion she’d rather not hear. She and Roarke’s “man about everything” had sniped at each other since they had met, but Mavis and Bella were like a daughter and granddaughter to him and he would be distraught. A distraught Somerset wasn’t a pretty sight, almost as bad as when Ivana would visit and they …  
Oh, ick. Serious amounts of ick. Away with that thought. Far, far away. She had problems enough, exhaustion to name one.   
“I’m glad you came with me to tell the Daytons. That’s way above and beyond the call for a civilian consultant.”   
“Expert civilian consultant to you. I’ve known Mark and Patti for decades. So has Somerset. He knew poor Marcy. That will upset him as much as the fact that Bella found her.”   
“At least you didn’t have to wake Somerset up at 02:00. Protocol demands it or I wouldn’t have informed the Daytons until tomorrow.”   
“And let some idiot at Central leak it to the media? Not you, darling Eve. Not in this or any lifetime.”   
“I know it. They’ve got as many information leaks as they have leaks in the roof of that old place.”   
“Come to bed, Eve. Stake your claim before Yeats has it all.”   
“I can’t believe we got another cat as greedy as Galahad was. What were the odds?”   
“Two constantly starving lions who also want to share the bed with us-the cat we had and the one we have now.”   
“With a few years in between to save up enough money to feed this one. You must have had to sell a planet or two to feed him when we got him from the shelter.”   
With that, she climbed the platform and eased into bed  
He gently pulled her close.   
“You’re not on the roll tomorrow. I’ve set Annabelle to get the boys up and give them breakfast. If you’re still sleeping, I’ll see if we can plan something so they won’t wake you up by breaking your city noise codes.”   
“Roarke, I forgot something. I need to … I should have” she said, her voice already becoming thick as sleep overtook her.   
“Tomorrow,” he said.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is highly annoyed to be awakened by her two sons outside her bedroom door. After sending them away, she finds a serious mistake concerning her report on last night's murder. She needs to set it right before sending it to her Commander. In the midst of her work, she receives a link call from a highly upset Mavis.

Eve woke to the smell of coffee—not just good, but exquisite as well as life-giving. She also couldn’t help noticing the shouting and general hubbub that meant whatever gambit Annabelle had tried on the boys had failed dismally. A droid could only do so much, even the state of the art house droid Roarke had given her for Christmas two years before. She’d seen “Mary Poppins,” one of Roarke’s classic vids and one of Jack’s favorites, so her obliging husband had gotten his R&D division to build a droid designed to look and sound like the vid actress who had played the role, Judy somebody, she couldn’t think who above the noise and her dire need for caffeine.   
She poured her first cup of coffee, then gulped a quarter of it down. Her brain engaged. Now she could do something about the racket.   
“You two,” she said as she slammed the door open hard enough to smack the wall. “Do you think I want to hear you two at this hour?” She had no idea what time it was, but they didn’t need to know that.   
She immediately got two cries of “Mom, he wanted my—--”  
“Do you think I care? What am I wearing?”  
Jack, her older son said “Your robe,” sounding puzzled.  
“And what do I have in my right hand?”   
“A cup of coffee,” said Ryan. He squinched up his face and made it sound like she was holding a dead rat. “How can you drink that stuff?”   
“Don’t change the subject, Ryan. When I’m wearing my robe and holding a cup of coffee,) she took another life-giving gulp. Ryan made a face, Jack smirked.  
“Put it together. The robe, the coffee. What have you two done?”  
“I didn’t do anything, Mom. He took my—”  
“Stupid, we woke her up. Annabelle told us not to do that,” Jack said, poking his younger brother in the ribs.   
“If Annabelle told you not to do that, Ryan, while I rarely call either of you stupid, you both earned it this once. Jack, I’ve told you about calling your brother stupid. He’s two years younger than you. Now, here’s a pop quiz. If you look out your nearest window, what do you see?”   
They looked out the window, turned equally blank looks to Eve.   
“You see outside. Outside is a lot bigger than this room. Noise from outside can’t get into my room. You see grass, and plenty of it. If you forgot because of all the rotten winter weather we had, the yellow thing above you is the sun. Today the weather is decent, so you go make all the noise you want outside where I can’t hear you. “Where’s your father?”  
“Should we go outside first, or tell you where Dad is?”   
“You think you’re funny, Jack? You both go outside. I’ll find out where your Dad is. Of course if I have to ask Somerset, he might forget you wanted to go to the vids later. I can help him forget a little thing like that.”   
“Dad said he was going to the market,” Ryan said. “He never pinch-hits for Somerset. Aunt Peabody does that, or the scary hair lady does.”   
Ryan had it right about Trina. Eve feared very few people on or off planet, but Trina with her endless array of hair and body torture implements was one. She knew Roarke wasn’t going there to shop, but the boys didn’t need to know just now that he was making another condolence visit to a shattered family. The victim had been their only child.   
“All right. Both of you, beat it. Once you go outside, it’s up to Annabelle and Somerset. If he doesn’t take you to the vids later, that’s on you. I’ll forget about you two waking me up.”   
“Thanks, Mom,” said Jack as they ran down the long hall to the stairs.   
Having held off anarchy for at least five minutes, she took the rest of her coffee to her command center. She programmed waffles and bacon. When she opened the AutoChef, Yeats showed his face for the first time that morning.   
“Don’t even think about it,” she said before he could try his bacon crawl. “I’ll send you where I sent the boys.”   
She knew Yeats wanted as little to do with Ryan and Jack’s wrestling and ball playing as he could manage. His predecessor, Galahad hadn’t bothered with the boys even as babies. As big as the house was, she and Roarke might get a puppy for the boys to play with, but the kids hadn’t thought to ask in the last few months. The kids rarely acted their age, but they were big enough now to have a puppy, if it was a spirited one like a Lab. Mavis had one for her children, so Eve figured she’d ask her oldest friend about a puppy for the boys. Then she’d hold off just a bit longer, and the next time they asked, they’d be surprised how easily she gave in. She’d only push back a little, just for form’s sake. She and her friend Cher Reo were good at playing that game when they had a criminal thinking he was about to get a deal. That game could be played in reverse with her sons.   
She finished her breakfast and pored over her notes for the report she had to send Commander Feeney on last night’s DB. Commander Feeney. Now and then, She still had a time believing it, although her old trainer had taken over the top spot a few years back. Her younger son was named for Feeney, her older son for the commander he had replaced.   
She sat straight up as she saw something missing from her notes. She poured another mug of coffee and took a large gulp. Hot as it was, she needed it. She really was losing her touch, she thought, and if she left something this important out of a report, Commander Feeney would suggest she take a medical leave. She hadn’t run Charlie Marcano, Bella’s boy friend of the previous evening. It was clear enough Bella wouldn’t be seeing Charlie in future, but procedure demanded she run him since, if he hadn’t run away, he would have been a witness. It didn’t take her long to see why he’d run. She would have to talk to both Mavis and her daughter about Bella’s taste in boyfriends. Failing grades in school, shoplifting, drinking, using illegals. What had the child seen in this creep? He was everything Bella wasn’t, everything Mavis had been as a girl and was pushing hard to get Bella to steer clear of. She brought up Charlie’s latest ID photo. Well, she guessed what Bella had seen. He had a handsome face under black hair and black eyes. Roarke’s black hair was long and straight. Charlie’s was curly. She remembered Bella saying she had wanted to play with his curly hair. His face was clearer than most teenage faces she’d seen. Bella’s brother Donnie was in such a bad way, it looked like his face was one big pimple. To Eve’s way of thinking, the worst part was, Donnie didn’t seem to give a rat’s skinny ass about how his face looked. He seemed to think being almost as tall and bulky as his father was good enough for him. She looked down as her link went off. Mavis shouldn’t have to call now, but there she was. Even more pale than usual with red-rimmed eyes. More trouble, Eve thought.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve fields a link call from a frantic Mavis. Bella, to say the least, didn't rest comfortably after her late night excursion.   
> Eve cogitates, then goes to work.

“Dallas. What’s up, Mavis?”   
“Dallas, when can I bring Bella to Cop Central to give her statement?”   
“Give me a couple of hours. I want to assign another detective to take her statement.”   
“But she knows you.”   
“Exactly. I took her statement last night in the park. Procedure is clear on this. Another detective should take her statement at Cop Central. I have somebody In mind who doesn’t know Bella as well as I do.”   
“If you say so.”   
“What’s the hurry, Mavis? Most people don’t want to hurry down to the cop shop. I have to put them in restraints or beat them into submission to get them there.”   
Mavis didn't crack a smile. Bad sign, Eve thought.   
“I’m worried, Dallas. My Bella never has nightmares , but last night, …”   
Why would that surprise her, Eve thought. She was still beset by nightmares. Not as often as they had come once upon a time, but they still happened.   
“Belle had them last night.”   
“Did she ever. Dallas, she was louder than me at a stadium show.”  
“My God, Mavis. I’m surprised every dog in the city didn’t go crazy.”   
“Penny didn’t. She was in bed with Bella, trying to wake her up.”   
“I didn’t think Penny slept with her,” said Eve, thinking of the Labrador retriever Mavis had bought a few years before.  
“That’s the point, she doesn’t usually. She has a dog bed on the floor next to Bella. Animals can tell sometimes when something’s wrong with people. You told me Galahad used to try to wake you up.”   
“He did, but he always slept with us. Yeats can’t usually be bothered, and he doesn’t pretend to notice if I have a bad dream. He figures that’s Roarke’s department.”   
“And I bet he’s just so good at it. Like my HoneyBear was with Bella. I never saw him move as fast as that. I was behind him when he got into Bella’s room. He got Penny off the bed, woke up our BellaMina and sang to her like he used to when she was little.”   
“I trust she told him not to sing.” In the family, Mavis had the musical talent.  
“Not right away she didn’t. Normally she does, but for a minute or two there, she shivered all over, cuddled up to him and just cried. Then she sort of calmed down, slowly like. Then she told him how he was the greatest daddy on or off planet, but he shouldn’t sing.”   
“That’s the Bella we know and love. I’m working at home for now, but bring her down around 13:30 or so. I’ll draft the guy who will take her statement.”   
“Dallas,” Mavis, who usually charged straight ahead, faltered like she could hardly get the single word out.   
“What is it, Mavis?”   
“You don’t have to put her … where I was back when, you remember, don't you?”   
“No, that isn’t necessary. She’s not a suspect, she’s a witness and nothing else. She was smarter than most—she didn’t get near the body.”   
“She said she learned not to mess up a crime scene from you. She must have seen one of Nadine’s vids, though if she did, I certainly didn’t set it up.”  
“She did right. 99 out of 100 civilians will compromise the scene, often with the best of intentions. Like, they think, Let’s try and save this slob’s life who’s been dead for hours and hours. That’s the one I see more than any other. People don’t know that dead is dead, even in 2076. Whatever else, she kept her distance and tagged me up. We both told her that she could call me up if she got herself in trouble. Roarke and I both wondered when we’d get a frantic tag, but we never thought it would be something like this. I have to finish this report for the Commander, then I’ll be at Central. I’ll have you two escorted to the lounge.”  
“Thanks, Dallas. I have to go stop the others. One link call and anarchy prevails.”   
“You know it. See you later, Mavis.”   
She added what she’d found on Charlie Marcano to her report, then copied it to Feeney. Sunday or not, her Commander had been captain of the Electronic Detection Division, so she might hear from him today. She surely would have heard from him if she hadn’t cleaned up her mess. He had a nose for sloppy work like Yeats had one for bacon. Feeney might be closer to 80 than 70, but the NYPSD had no mandatory retirement age, and Feeney hadn’t retired his ass-kicking boots any more than she had retired hers.   
She hadn’t touched 50 yet, which Roarke had done two years ago. They’d taken a long trip to celebrate, first to his island, then to Italy, and last to Ireland. They had a special reason to make Ireland their last stop. Roarke’s cousin Sean had, at long last, gotten his family’s permission to move to New York. They all thought his wish to be a New York policeman had been childish fantasy. Eve and Roarke certainly thought it was. When he had turned 18, Eve had laid out all the requirements and insisted he get as much education in Ireland as he could. Roarke had helped him through university, and with the family’s blessing, they had flown him back to New York with them at the end of their vacation.   
Roarke drew the line at pulling strings to make Sean a citizen. He needn’t have bothered. Sean said he wanted to take the regular classes and become a citizen. So they’d given the boy his head. Talk about a silly saying, Eve thought. He already had his head, so why did they say they gave it to him? He was now a citizen and sharing an apartment with a few of his citizenship classmates, waiting for the endless paperwork to come through so he could go to the police academy. When he had first flown to New York, Eve didn’t think he’d last a week. Not that she blamed him, but the kid was homesick for Ireland. It took him weeks to be able to sleep properly with the traffic noises. The first time he drove one of Roarke’s sports cars, (and why did her husband lend his distant relative such an easily demolished car?) He’d nearly been killed before he realized he was driving on the wrong side of the road. He couldn’t figure any more than she could why Americans and the Irish didn’t drive on the same side.   
Now, he had sort of gotten used to New York. He was tending bar to make a living until he found out if he’d been accepted into the academy. He was working at a place Roarke owned. No way would her husband allow Sean to work in one of the city’s numerous dives and sex clubs.   
She got a sandwich and another cup of coffee from the AutoChef. When she was finished, she’d head downtown. If she got there early, she’d just tag Mavis. It might be doing the poor woman a favor.   
Somerset was lurking in the hall when she came downstairs.  
“You couldn’t spend a full day, even a Sunday, at home with your sons.”   
“I would, but you’d be here. Where’s the fun in that? Have you decided to take the boys to the vids?”   
“Yes. Unlike you, they gave me no trouble at all once they were throwing their arenaball on the grass.”  
“Thank you, Somerset.” She rarely said that, but this was sort of a special occasion. “I’m sorry about Marcy.”   
“It’s always a tragedy when a child dies. I know, she was of legal age, but from where I’m looking, poor Marcy was a child. And of all people to find her, Bella had to.”   
“That’s why I’m going in just now. I need one of the boys to take another statement from her.”   
“Another?”   
“I took one last night. I need another one now to see if she says anything wildly different from last night.”   
“You’re talking about Bella, Lieutenant, not one of your criminals who lie every time they move their lips.”   
“I know that, you know that, but you also know I have a boss who wants things done by the book. I’ll tag one of you if I’ll be really late.”   
Somerset thought the Lieutenant’s idea of “really late” varied greatly from his, but he didn’t have the energy to bother her just now. If he wasn’t the sort of man he was, he’d let Annabelle take the boys to the vids. But no droid ever made matched a human’s ability to supervise two energetic boys. Even a creaky old specimen like he was now could control them better than a droid. After the vids, he’d need a blocker for the wretched pounding headache he’d have from the noise. Annabelle would have to put ice on his back because the chairs at the vid palace were unforgiving. He’d be lucky if it was just a headache and a backache he'd bring home.   
He took a text from Roarke. “Trouble. Called into work, Sunday be damned. Tell Eve I’m sorry.”   
He answered back. “Where do you think the Lieutenant is now? You have as good a chance of tagging her as I have, boy.” He thought about that, sent it on. He told Annabelle to summon the children and to watch the house while he took the boys to the vids. Summoning the children took some doing, but they were in the car with time in hand.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve dragoons a young detective to take Bella's statement. She then warns Bella and Mavis about Bella's date, Charlie Marcano.  
> meantime, Charlie's older brother Fred hatches a plan involving Bella.

At Cop Central, Eve surveyed her bull pen. Good, most of her regular crew were enjoying a Sunday off. It wouldn’t last, but she picked the newest of her detectives.  
“Fredericks, with me.”  
“Me, sir?” New as he was, Fredericks had already found out he should call his boss “Sir,” no matter that she was female.  
“Yes, you, Fredericks. Front and center. Study this file once we get to the lounge. I’m fairly sure your witness isn’t here yet.”  
“my what? Huh?”  
“Your witness, Detective. You expect me to believe you never took a statement from a witness before you came down here from Morningside Heights?”  
“Sure, I did. I mean, I just didn’t think I’d be working with you. I only just got here, and you—”  
“No time like the present. The witness is 16 years old. She could well be nervous.”  
Not half as nervous as I am, the young detective thought. Not here a week, and doing an interview for the legendary Eve Dallas. Donna would flip when he told her the minute he got home.  
Eve texted Mavis as they walked to the lounge. “Any time now.”  
The text came back in short order. “We need 10 minutes.”  
“You got 10 minutes to study my report, Fredericks. You do that, you’ll know what we need.”  
The young detective gulped. To Eve, he looked about 12 although she knew he was twice that age.  
“When they show up, I’ll get them fizzies and you, your best bet is a Pepsi.”  
“I’ll take one, Lieutenant.”  
“You won’t get it unless you call me Dallas.”  
“I guess so, Dallas. A Pepsi is a lot better than the coffee here. I thought we had the worst up where I was, but this stuff ..”  
“Truly indescribable. 25 years plus and it’s as bad as it was the day I put on the uniform.  
A few minutes later, Mavis and Bella were escorted into the lounge by a uniform who had gotten Eve’s memo.  
“Dallas, your witness and her mother.”  
“Thanks, Briggs. You two get as comfortable as you can. I promised the detective a Pepsi. Bella, a Fizzie for you, Mavis, I just don’t know.”  
“Pepsi for me, Dallas. No way am I drinking that vending machine coffee. Now, if I could raid your AutoChef, …”  
“Raid it and you’ll be in a cage with no hair priviliges for the next thousand years.  
That broke everybody up except the detective. He was too new at Central to get it.  
When she brought the drinks and handed them around, she said “Mavis, you can stay with Bella while she gives Detective Fredericks her statement. When that’s done, I need to see both of you.”  
“Both of us? What for?”  
“Just something I left off the report last night. I have to tie it off.”  
“Can we stay in here and do it? I don’t want you to take Bella to Interview.”  
“Not today, I won’t take her there. When he has the statement, the Detective can tag me. I’ll join you two, he’ll leave. He didn’t come here just to talk to you, Bella. He has other duties.” ”  
She waited in Observation. She took a text from Feeney. She might have known he’d get to her report. She figured she’d made a good save by adding the details on Charlie Marcano. Feeney’s P.S. at the bottom was “You and Mavis need to keep her away from this kind of trouble. This guy’s brother is no damn good. One day, you may have to send him off planet. Jenkinson threw his father in a cage just before the DeBlass case. Remember that golden oldie?” With that, he had signed off.  
So Charlie Marcano was second generation trouble. Over the years, she’d seen a lot of guys who were second, third or fourth generation money grow up to be troublemakers. Apparently, trouble was in Charlie Marcano’s genes, and not the faux designer jeans he’d been wearing in his mug shots.  
Half an hour later, Her link buzzed twice. That meant Fredericks had wrapped things up. He’d done either an efficient job or a sloppy one. She’d judge that when she saw his report.  
She left Observation and went back into the lounge. Fredericks was closing his PPC and smiling at Bella.  
“Thanks, Dallas.”  
“I want that report on my desk by 16:00, no later. Unless there’s anything hot, you go home at 18:00.”  
“Thanks, boss.” The detective headed back to the bull pen, arm swinging.  
“OK, Dallas,” Mavis said. “Detective Cutie took Belle’s statement. What do you need from us?”  
“Mom,” Bella said with her classic eye roll. “He’s an old man.”  
“I’ll tell both of you what’s up. Mavis, how much do you know about Bella’s date last night?”  
“Not much. They’ve had a few dates. Bella told me they were going to the vids. We know how that turned out.”  
“Bella, did you really mean it that you don’t want Charlie to be your sweetheart?”  
“Yes, I meant it all right. I told the other detective, Charlie ran away and left me all alone with the dead body.”  
“In case you have any second thoughts, I’m going to tell you some of the facts of life.”  
“Dallas,” both Mavis and Bella said.  
“Not those_ facts of life. Both of you have been listening to Roarke and McNab once too often. Mavis, take a look at some of these pictures.”  
She gave her oldest friend a folder of mug shots, all featuring Charlie Marcano.  
“Bella, are you doing this on purpose? This boy’s been in more kinds of trouble than I was back when I was your age. Look at these pictures, and read what Dallas underlined.”  
Bella looked.  
“Holy shit,” she nearly whispered.  
“This time I won’t complain about you saying that. In my head, I’m saying that and a whole lot of other stuff. My daughter and a juvenile delinquent.”  
“He probably ran because he knew a cop would look up his record, which I did.”  
“That doesn’t mean he killed the girl.”  
“No, but he wasn’t real interested in finding out what happened. I found out why from Feeney while you were giving your statement. Has Charlie ever told you about his dad?”  
“He said his dad took off and was running a bar in Florida.”  
“Running a bar. That’s a good one. He’s been behind bars since before your Mom met your dad.”  
“That doesn’t make sense, Dallas. Bella told me she met Charlie at school.”  
“he’s 18, Mavis. You’re still good at math. Remember I met Roarke a couple months before you met Leonardo?”  
“OK, I could never forget when I met him.”  
“Well, Charlie’s dad landed in a cage a week or two before I met Roarke. Charlie was not even a month old. His big brother is 2 years older than him, and Feeney says he’s no damn good. Mavis, I want the name of whoever Bella wants to go to the prom with, if you let her go at all.”  
“Mom, you can’t make Eve do that.”  
“Say that again and you won’t go to this prom, the one next year or any other one. Eve doesn’t have to help us out this way. Not many aunts will look up a boy’s record to see if he’s another bum like the genius you were with last night.”  
“Take it someplace else, you two,” Eve said. “I have enough hassle with my boys. See how long your argument lasts when the other four start in. Mavis, what were you two thinking about, having 5 kids? Who does that?”  
“We did, but I won’t tell you what I was thinking about.”  
“I probably don’t want to hear. I’ll see you two around.”  
“Thanks, Dallas. Maybe now I won’t have nightmares again.”  
“I hope you don’t, Bella.” But somehow, Eve thought the girl wasn’t done with nightmares, and might not be done with Charlie Marcano. In her day, she had tried to watch the guys Mavis was going out with. Mavis was alone in New York, so no matter how unwilling she had been, she had sort of adopted the tiny woman. She’d gone through one boyfriend bozo after another until by a miracle she had run on Leonardo.  
Eve wondered if Leonardo had ever told Mavis that his given name was Jimmy Longthorn. She had found out after losing a silly bet with Roarke, but hadn’t thought it was right to tell Mavis if the love of her life hadn’t done so. Jimmy had grown up on a Seminole reservation in Florida. How he had gotten into the rarified world of fashion design was a mystery. Roarke could have solved that puzzle, but she wasn’t about to ask him to do so. As long as Leonardo had no criminal record, which he didn’t under any name, she’d take his secret to the grave. To do less would be to betray two of her closest friends. 

The black-haired young man was seething. It was well past Noon, and his useless brother wasn’t awake yet. He himself hadn’t shown up until 3 A.M. It took him forever to get cleaned up after the thing in the park. And still, late as he was, Charlie wasn’t in yet. Just because the law said his brother was an adult, Fred Marcano thought, that didn’t make him one. He’d had a terrible night, hardly any sleep after the thing in the park. Then Mama on his ass all morning. Like a dog, Yap yap yap about why he didn’t make sure Charlie was home by Midnight. What was he supposed to do, put a leash on him like one of those dogs that went yap, yap, yap. That’s what his mom did, just yap while his little puke brother slept. That was about to end.  
He slapped his sleeping brother hard, first right cheek, then left.  
“Hey, what the fuck,” said Charlie, sitting bolt upright.  
“Get the fuck out of bed, you worthless little snot.”  
“What crawled up your ass, Freddy,” Charlie asked, getting gingerly out of his cot. Bella practically busted his balls last night, his asshole brother was on his case now. Everybody was out to hurt him one way or the other.  
“Mama wants you to clean up this place.”  
“I’m getting’ a Pepsi. Why don’t you clean up your mess, Freddy?”  
Fred punched him in the chest, knocking Charlie back a step.  
“Ma didn’t tell ME_ to clean it up. She wants YOU_ to do a little goddamn work around here. You might as well. As bad as your grades are, a janitor job is all the work you’ll ever get.”  
“Like what you do is so much better?”  
“Hey, you know goddamn well I fix cars. Nothing wrong with fixing cars.”  
“Without Uncle Miguel, you wouldn’t be fixing shit. Nobody would hire you with your record.”  
“he hired me,” Fred said, punching Charlie in the chest again, ”Because I know what I’m doing. Ya gotta study hard to fix a car and not have it blow up two minutes later. A goddamn monkey can push a mop and a broom like you’re gonna do this afternoon. If You don’t, what about Bel—la,” he gave the name a mocking lilt. “La chica rica!! And muy muy bella,” This time, He pronounced it “Bay-ya,” using the Spanish word for beautiful. “Wait till I get some slob at your school to tell her, “OOH Bella, your boyfriend’s a worthless sack of shit. Then I’ll grab her and pound hell out of her, way better than you could do with your limp noodle dick.”  
“Hey, you don’t know shit about Bella,” Charlie said. His voice was outraged, inside he had a very real worry that his brother would do just what he said. He was a rat, and that kind of threat was his M.O. He didn’t know what the letters M.O. meant, but he knew it was cop talk for the way a crook rolled.  
“Fuck I don’t know. I know more than I want to. Those two pussies you hang out with spilled their guts. They told me you blew them off when they wanted to go play roundball. You and that bitch had a hot date last night.”  
That had to be Juan and Pedro. Those two mamajuevos!_ He’d beat the piss out of both of them before today was done. But before that, well, …  
“Aw, whatever. I’ll clean up this stinkin’ joint, but Mama shouldn’t leave it like this. We’re not slaves.”  
‘”You are until this place is clean, or you … know … what!”  
At least, the place wasn’t all that big. He would clean it up, then he’d have lunch. His brother wasn’t gonna fuck things up with Bella. So, she’d called a cop last night. What the fuck? Somebody yelled. Some chicks yelled when they were getting’ it real good. That’s what Freddy said, and one day, he’d find out for himself. Then he’d show Freddy who had a limp dick. His brother wasn’t some big shit just because he could fix a car. He was only an inch or two taller than Charlie. Charlie could kick his balls in if he wanted to.  
“You’re thinkin’ evil thoughts, ‘mano,” said his older brother. “Just keep moppin’ up and think those thoughts some place else.”  
“Do you gotta spy on me or somethin’? Mama died and made you the cops?”  
“Mama’s out makin’ a living, not like some little shit face I know about.”  
“What about you?”  
“Day off,” Fred said. “Mama gotta clean up rooms at the hotel. She’ll be back at six.”  
He got the place cleaned up, then had a quick lunch. You couldn’t have much more than a quick lunch. Mama didn’t leave much in the AutoChef, when it bothered working. More likely, Freddy ate up most of the good stuff while he was asleep. Hey, it was a late night after all. He could barely walk the first mile. He had stopped at an arcade and played vid games until he could get himself together enough to catch the subway home. Even now as he ate a pathetic lunch, All he could think about was Bella, and the way she had first kissed him, then pulled away from him and called the cops for no damn reason. Things were just getting good. Yeah, she’d pushed him away before the other idiot screamed, but that was only his first move toward second base, sort of a fake move. A little more time and he would have made a real move. Next time they got together, no more waiting around so somebody could ruin his night. He knew just how to get Bella to do anything he wanted. His brother Freddy had a way to win a girl that couldn’t be stopped. He’d have to be nice to Freddy, not piss him off for a few days for it to work. He finished his sad lunch.  
“Hey, I’m outa here, bro,” he said hopefully.  
“I dunno, lemme look around.” Fred looked. “No, this place ain’t clean enough for me.”  
Better watch it, Charlie thought. He had to be nice to Freddy and put up with his shit.  
“I cleaned it up, Fred.”  
“Not good enough. What about this,” Fred said, pouring a full bottle of brew on the floor.  
Forgetting his resolve, Charlie yelled, “Hey, that’s uncle Miguel’s brew. He don’t want us drinkin’ that!”  
“His brew is horse piss. Only little scumbags like you and your friends deserve to drink it. You clean that mess up.”  
Thinking about Bella, and his brother’s method of making girls interested, Charlie stolidly swept up the spilled brew without a word.  
“Now, it’s clean enough,” his older brother said. “Now, you did what Mama said. Get outa my face. Go play under a Maxibus if you feel like it.”  
That was as close to a joke as his brother could get, and Charlie counted himself lucky he hadn’t been punched again just for laughs. Well, now it was his turn. He’d only punch out the first one he saw, Juan or Pedro. He’d leave the other one to think about how much worse a beating he’d get some other time.  
Fred wasn’t much happier now than he’d been when he woke his brother up out of bed. He couldn’t tell Mama about the thing in the park, and he sure as shit wasn’t telling Charlie. He had to tell somebody or his head would explode. But who could he tell that wouldn’t go running to the cops? He thought of something Charlie said. Uncle Miguel’s brew. Yeah, it was horse piss, but Uncle Miguel had brains. He owned the garage and knew how to make brew which people bought, even if most of his customers were adults who didn’t mind setting kids up with the poison. Just maybe he could talk to Uncle Miguel.  
He knew good brew when he had some, which usually meant when he stole enough money to buy some. He knew what he spent most of his money on. He’d eat whatever Mama gave him and drink water if he could have good illegals. He not only had them, he knew where to keep them. He was lucky Mama didn’t want him to move out. That would bring up a lot of questions he couldn’t answer about how he’d spent the money Uncle Miguel gave him for his work at the garage.  
He didn’t remember his father. Mama still had some pictures, but he and Charlie both knew he had gone to jail and wouldn’t get parole. As he had grown up and the years had passed, Mama would move a guy in, then throw him out a few weeks or months later, then move another one in, and so on. He and Charlie had both beat up their share of punks saying shit about their Mama. Most of the time, he had little use for his little brother, but the kid could punch if he had to, and he wouldn’t let nobody talk trash about their mama. Maybe that was the one good thing about Charlie.  
Still, he hadn’t been joking about Bella. The kid was rich and beautiful. And not a kid, not really. His uncle Huicho would tell him “If she’s big enough, she’s old enough,” if the old perv had enough to drink and the subject of girls came up. If Uncle Miguel was around and well lubricated with his own product, he’d elbow Uncle Huicho in the ribs and say “Don’t talk that shit around my boys, cabron,” then they’d both laugh like fools.  
Why should Charlie have all the goodies? Girls were all the same anyway. Why shouldn’t he have Bella, and leave Charlie with one of the skanks that hung out with his low life friends. From the pictures he’d seen in Charlie's journal, (which the little moron didn't know Fred had seen,) Bella was prime brew instead of his uncle’s horse piss. He smiled for the first time that day. He’d get so drunk on her he wouldn’t be able to think.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve receives distressing news about the murdered woman Bella found last night. She goes home to discuss it with Roarke. Bella finds it impossible to tell her diary about last night's frightening excursion. Exhausted, she sleeps, only to find herself beset by another nightmare.

With Bella and Mavis on their way home, Eve thought she’d follow their lead. That idea lasted about 11 seconds before she took a link call from an upset Peabody.   
“What gives, Peabody? You and McNab aren’t on the roll today.”   
“I know, Dallas, but we were looking over what we could find about Marcy, and McNab found something you need to know about.”   
“Well, spill it. All I want to do is go home. Don’t make me come to your place.”   
“You won’t need to do that. It turns out Marcy Dayton didn’t just work for her parents, like we always thought.”  
“OK, she used to moonlight doing what? Working at the library?”   
“I thought something like that at first, until McNab dug it out of the computer. She tried to hide it, but she had an LC license in the name of Melanie Nicholas. Her mistake was to put her own Social Security number on both cards.”  
“Amateurs,” Eve said. “You dig around enough, I bet you a loaded soy dog that Nicholas is a family name. Her dad, her grandfather, whatever.”   
“Neither of us would take the bet. McNab looked, and her grandpa’s name was Nicholas. He had a heart attack in ’72, and before anybody found him, he had checked out.  
“She wasn’t thinking, putting his name on her LC license.” ”   
“Dallas, what bothers me is why she would want or need an LC license. The market’s doing well. The Daytons have got money. They’re Not rich, but like McNab and me, they’ve got enough to get by. I’ve met her folks, and they don’t seem like they would deny her what she needs.”  
“We both know that when you want something, logic can go straight out the window.”  
“I know it. You’ve told me that a thousand times.”   
“You’ve been listening, as usual. So just maybe, Marcy Dayton wanted something that was out of reach on whatever her parents paid her. It probably wasn’t anything basic. They’d get her a new wrist unit if it was something simple.”   
McNab moved closer to the link, pausing a moment to squeeze Peabody’s shoulder. Eve noticed with profound relief she couldn’t see where McNab’s other hand might be.   
“I’ve talked to Charles from time to time,” McNab said.   
“other than the time you punched him in the face?”  
Eve always enjoyed reminding McNab of the night he had gone after Charles Monroe, a former licensed companion who he thought was after Peabody.   
“Dallas, you’ve never let me get over that. Anyway, he told me that some of the girls (and especially the guys) in his former line of work get into it, at least initially, for the thrill, or to take a shot at their parents, whether it makes sense or not.”   
“Did one of you check the date on Marcy’s license?”   
“I did,” said Peabody, sounding unusually sad. “She’d only been legal for 6 weeks.”   
“Did she have her last appointment on her home computer? You know, whoever did her took her PPC.  
“She was too new at it to get appointments. She was street level, and doing her six months’ probation. She had to be finished working for the night. Her turf wasn’t anywhere near the park.” ”   
“It wouldn’t be. If she worked under a phony name, the last thing she’d want is some neighbor, or one of her parents coming by and saying “Oh hey, Marcy, fancy meeting you here.”  
“Dallas, only you would find that funny. Can you imagine if my Mom or Dad found out I was doing that? I mean, it’s legal and all, but my mother …”   
“If you were, She-Body, we’d be a lot richer than we are, considering your amazing talent, and your …” he leaned close to his wife, grinning.   
“Focus, for the love of God. Once I get off this link, I don’t care what you do.”   
“Do I have to start my day at the morgue?”   
“No, Peabody,” Eve said. “I’ll go there first thing tomorrow. A beautiful Saturday night like last night, they’ve probably got bodies stacked up 10 deep there.”  
“There goes my appetite,” said McNab. “You’ll have to eat for both of us, She-Body.”   
“Then I’ll make you work for both of us,” said Peabody, clicking off the link and pulling McNab toward their bed.   
“Hey, wow,” said McNab. “I thought I had my quota after the game last night.”  
“Maybe that was Your quota,” Peabody said. “For the moment, my quota is what you need to do something about. Can you do it, Skinny?”   
“The kids---”   
“I married an E-man. You thought I’d forget to lock up, just in case—”   
“She-Body,” he said, smiling at what he considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Not quite 16 years living together and still, when the mood was on him, like now, she could send him into orbit. He stopped thinking and pulled her against him, eagerly pressing his lips to hers and letting his hands play on their favorite playground. 

Now, she really would go home, Eve thought. If Roarke wasn’t home, maybe she’d spend some time in the gym before supper. Like her husband, she didn’t believe in body sculpting. They both maintained their bodies the old-fashioned way. OK, sort of. She did more holographic running on sandy beaches, while he used more antique free weights. Roarke had gotten those weights long before she had met him, which meant God only knew where he had found or stolen them. If he happened to be home, (it was Sunday after all,) they might take a swim. That was the answer to the twinges she sometimes got in her back.   
When she got home, she didn’t find either the skinny pain in her ass or the fat cat. At least, nobody would trip over Yeats and break a leg, which Somerset had managed to do tripping over Galahad years before. Yeats spent so much time on chairs or beds, she wondered if he knew the floor existed. She spotted him on the couch as she took her jacket off and hung it on the newel post. Annabelle came gliding over. It was more than a little creepy how the latest top of the line droid moved. It didn’t look like Somerset, but it moved as silently as Roarke’s majordomo.   
“Annabelle, I thought you might have taken the boys to the vids.”   
“No, Dallas. Somerset did not ask me to go along. He felt he could mind the children himself, and just told me to be on standby if he used the link. He called me 30 minutes ago, saying he was taking the boys to a spaghetti place.”  
“He must have promised them that if they behaved themselves.”   
“I heard him make that promise, but didn’t think the boys could manage it,” said Annabelle. Leave it to Roarke Industries to build a droid that could almost think. Annabelle seemed to have a handle on how Jack and Ryan behaved.   
“Is Roarke home yet?”   
“No, Dallas. He made contact 15 minutes ago saying he was on his way. He had been summoned to his office, Somerset told me before he and the boys left.”   
So he’d gotten stuck working half a day at the office, just as she had. She figured she’d wait for him on the couch, and find out if he wanted a swim when he got back.   
“You, go find another couch,” she said to Yeats. “We’ve only got about a thousand of them.”  
“Twenty-seven sofas and 4 love seats throughout the house,” said Annabelle.  
“That’s all right, Annabelle,” she said. “I was just telling the cat I want this couch and he can have one of the others.”   
“Why wouldn’t he use the rest of the couch you’re sitting on?”  
“The last cat we had would have done that. Yeats is a different cat. He never pushes himself against my legs when I come home.”  
“Human and animal interactions are just a bit out of my reach,” said the droid. “Roarke told me to make sure a pot of coffee was ready when he got home. I’ll make enough for both of you.”   
“Do that, Annabelle. Meantime, I’ll just relax.”   
She put her head back, closed her eyes and started thinking. Marcy Dayton in the park, probably heading toward home for the night. Saturday night. She must have been working. Where had she been working, and why hadn’t she taken the subway to the stop on the corner near the Dayton house. They would have told her that cutting through the park might not be the best idea. People had said that about Central Park for more than a hundred years, maybe a lot more. The city had done all it could through the decades, but violence and illegals deals were still a problem there in spite of the beat droids that circled the park day and night. She was just as surprised Bella had wanted to take a moonlit stroll there with her guy. Given Charlie’s record, he probably had no problem being in the park. Most thugs like him would have had a sticker in his pocket, but if he had, why did he run off?  
Her thoughts were interrupted when Roarke joined her on the couch. Nobody moved as quietly as he did, and unlike Somerset, Annabelle wouldn’t feel the need to tell her when his car came through the gates.   
“Darlin’ Eve,” he said. As long as they’d been together, he’d never lost that hint of Ireland in his voice, even though there was now some gray in his black silk mane. In spite of the gray, his face could still set her pulse beating faster. Almost two decades since she’d first looked into those impossibly blue eyes. She could still get lost in them.   
“Annabelle said there was trouble at the office.”   
“Bloody crisis on Olympus. Even Caro couldn’t deal with it, so she summoned me.”   
“You don’t have to go there, do you?”   
“No, but darlin’, I’ll make sure to bring you along when I do. I just love having to subdue you when you go off planet.”   
“I’ll make you sell that place before I go back,” she said, pulling him to her.  
“What’s this, now,” he asked. “IT wasn’t so bad that I need to sell the resort to keep you supplied with coffee.”   
“It’s nothing about Olympus. How much did you tell the Daytons?”   
It barely took him a second. That was one of the thousand things she loved about this man. He got her, more than anybody except her commander, Feeney. Even McNab might have taken longer to get exactly what the Daytons shouldn’t have been told.   
“If you’re askin’, did I tell them about her LC license, I didn’t. I hope we don’t need to share that piece of information.”  
“Well, Peabody shared it with me because I didn’t find it last night. Your pupil discovered it.”   
“And you would have eventually if McNab didn’t. The child lacked the sense to get a bogus Social Security number. And her street name, I ask you …”   
“I know. Her own middle name, then her grandfather’s name as her last name on the license. Fucking Amateurs.”   
“With all you’ve learned from me, I expect you’d be far more clever than young Marcy if you wanted an LC license.”  
“Of course I would. I’d move to another state, just for starters. Even working a different part of the city, Marcy took a risk that she’d be recognized.”  
“And maybe she was, at that. Maybe her killer knew her and wanted her for himself, rather than sharing her with anybody who could make her fee.”  
“The thought had entered my mind,” said Eve. “Let’s drop it for a while. We’ve both had to work on a Sunday, which we don’t routinely do anymore. You want a swim?”   
“I’d never turn that down,” he said, smiling, then kissing her. 

Bella moved away from her computer and briefly closed her eyes. It was too early to go to bed, but she felt exhausted. Giving her statement to Dallas the night before was one thing. Giving it to the other officer (even though he was kind of cute for an old guy) was something else again. Her mom had lectured her for real on the way home, driving aimlessly around so she could lecture Bella without her dad being involved. Bella knew about cruising to Nowhere. She’d done her share of it with her BFF, Betsy. Why did her Dad have to call her Crazy Betsy? Betsy’s hair wasn’t any more weird than her mother’s. It looked to Bella like her mom and Betsy might use the same hair stylist, Trina. She knew Dallas was scared of Trina, but Bella couldn’t see why. Neither could her mom.   
After Betsy, her other BFFs were Ashley and Lia. She’d done her share of cruising with them once she got her license. No way she could share this with any of them, she thought. She looked down at her diary entry. She thought writing about what she had seen would be easier than it was. She still saw the dead woman lying on the ground when she closed her eyes. But when she opened them and tried to tell her diary what she’d seen, it was like something was jammed up in her head and she couldn’t get the words out. One of Peabody’s expressions, “Like pulling teeth” came to mind. Just the sound of that gave her chills. The idea of a guy ripping your teeth out of your head. Was that a free ager deal? Peabody said she’d had a few teeth pulled when she was a girl, but that had to be ages ago.   
It wasn’t just jammed in her head. Her chest and stomach hurt. How did Dallas see dead bodies routinely and just not explode? Her mother had mentioned telling Father Daley, but She wouldn’t see Father Daley until next Saturday. She knew not to tell the priest a story like hers on Sunday morning. If she told him, it would be when she went to confession next Saturday. It would be a long, long week until then.   
Dr. Mira and Uncle Dennis were in England or Italy. Uncle Dennis was about the only guy she hugged as much as she hugged her daddy. There was just something in his eyes that made her want to hug him and share her most painful secrets with him. In some cases, he told her Dr. Mira had whatever answers she was looking for, but as often as not, he would listen to her even if she didn’t want him to do anything special. That was her Uncle Dennis. Somehow, she could never think of Dr. Mira as “Aunt Charlotte, or even “Charley,” which was what Uncle Dennis called her. Even Dallas wouldn’t use Dr. Mira’s first name. she liked Dr. Mira’s tea, a drink Dallas wouldn’t touch when they all got together.   
Early or not, she lay down on her bed, pulling back the quilt. The weather wasn’t as cold now. That’s why she wanted to take a walk with Charlie. Look how that worked out. What would she say to him at school tomorrow? She didn’t know if she wanted to see him at school tomorrow. Hell, she didn’t want to go to school tomorrow, but she had no choice.   
At least, he’d graduate (maybe) in a couple months. He was as dumb as a box of rocks. What little he had said the night before proved that. He’d been held back at least once. Her mom had told her that during her lecture. Bella had a year to go before graduation, and from there … she didn’t know. She was sure she didn’t want to sing in front of huge arenas full of people. Even though it made her Mom tons of money, it wasn’t for Bella. No way, no how. No boy had been crazy enough to ask her to sing, no matter that her Mom was a famous star. She asked one boy to sing to her, and he had. She’d enjoyed that. If he’d stopped there and not started putting his hands on her, … well, that was her mistake. Charlie was an even bigger mistake.   
She drifted off, still wearing the clothes she’d worn to the police station. Penny came into Bella’s room, sniffed, then took her usual place in her dog bed on the floor next to Bella. If she woke up and reached her hand out, Penny would be there. She’d be there forever if her owner said so. While she liked playing with the others, the giant man and the small people alike, Penny always slept in Bella’s room. There had been trouble. Penny could tell, but whatever was bad seemed to be gone. Her owner was sleeping. If Penny got the scent of “bad,” she’d climb up on the big bed, like she did before. Dog and owner slept peacefully … for the time being. 

“It’s early for her to be asleep,” Mavis said.   
“After the night she had, oh Hell, after the night we all had. I’m not a bit surprised she bedded down a bit earlier than normal. We might do it ourselves, my love.”   
“If you run a vid first, Honey Bear,” she told her husband. She knew how Dallas felt about them still using the endearments they shared when they first met, but neither of them could help it.   
“Not one of Nadine’s. Not tonight,” Leonardo said as he thumbed through a shelf of vid discs.   
“Oh God no. Something Dallas wouldn’t watch in a zillion years.”  
“Ah, well. You want a nice funny vid with just a hint of romance.”  
“You get one of those. We can provide our own romance after the vid.”  
“Popcorn?”  
“Of course, darling. And go easy on the butter and salt.”  
Leonardo knew what she meant. He’d once made the mistake of reaching a hand into Eve’s popcorn one night, then dared Mavis to do the same. Roarke ate it the right way, Eve never had learned to do so.  
“We’ll watch this one. “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” Classic, more than a hundred years old and still funny.”   
“I’ll get the popcorn, you get the vid going, then we’ll watch it on the couch.”   
They were near the end of the vid. She knew that because she’d seen it any number of times before. This time, they’d been much busier with other pursuits. First they finished the popcorn, then they shared most of a bottle of wine. She could tell what was the next feature. It was all over Leonardo’s face, and he probably saw it on hers. She leaned back and beamed up at Leonardo.   
“you’d better get us upstairs. You don’t want the kids seeing what I’ve got planned.”  
“Of course not, my love,” he said. “Mary Alice can put them to bed.”   
“Why don’t you turn off the vid? You’re too good to wait for, and I already have to wait until we get upstairs.”   
“Done,” he said. “Stop vid.” She was over his shoulder in an instant. He loved carrying her upstairs. He knew Dallas didn’t like when Roarke did this, but his love had given him the moon and the stars. He felt she should be carried like a queen on special nights, like tonight.   
They were halfway upstairs and her outfit was halfway undone when a shriek pierced the happy bubble that had surrounded them since Leonardo had turned on the vid. He put Mavis down and had Bella’s bedroom door open in a twinkling. Like last night, Penny was pressing her body against Bella’s. Both of them were trembling all over.   
He gave Penny a quick caress, then enfolded his daughter.   
“She’s so totally dead,” Bella mumbled.  
Leonardo didn’t quite understand what she said. It looked to him as if Bella was still mostly asleep. He rubbed her back, and very softly sang a song he and Mavis had sung to her when she was a baby.   
“Darling, are you sure you should wake somebody up if they’re having a nightmare?”   
“I wouldn’t know. We’ve been luckier than most. You’ve given all our kids sweet dreams when you kissed them goodnight.”   
Bella stirred in his arms, then flung hers tightly around his neck.   
“Daddy, she hates me! She’s dead and she hates me!”   
“Nobody hates you, dearest Bella, nobody in all the world, nobody living and nobody dead. And nobody loves you like your mom and I do.”   
She held him tight, more tightly than usual. She used to hug him that way when she was younger, but the last few years, he figured the boys at school had gotten her best hugs. Until now, anyway.   
Mavis, her clothes back in order, sat down on the end of Bella’s bed.  
“Do you mean it was the lady you found?”   
“Yes,” said Bella, gently pulling away from Leonardo and turning to Mavis.   
“Mommy, she’s mad at me because she’s dead.”  
“Did she say that,” Mavis asked. This wasn’t the time to confuse Bella even more by saying she must have hallucinated.   
“Bella child, you’re alive. You had a bad scare, but you’re alive and right next to me. Do you have any idea how happy that makes me,” said Leonardo, pulling her to him again and running his fingers through her hair.   
“How about me? Do I get a turn,” asked Mavis.   
Bella gently moved away from Leonardo and turned to hug her mother.   
“I know I was out past curfew, Mommy. I just wish … you know. This is worse than any punishment you could think of.” ”   
“You’re learning a harder lesson than I would have liked. Your dad and I want you to grow up and have chances we didn’t have when we were teenagers. When the Miras come back, if you still have these nightmares, I’ll ask Dallas to set it up so you can talk to Dr. Mira. She’s another person who can’t repeat anything you tell in their office.  
“Like Father Daley,” Bella said. “Maybe I should talk to him next Saturday.”   
“That’s up to you all the way,” said Leonardo. “I’m not going to push you to do that.”   
“Do you want some cocoa? We still have lots of it.”   
“Uncle Dennis’ recipe?”  
“The only kind we carry in this house,” said Leonardo. “I think all of us need a cup of it.”

It took a while, but they all finished their cocoa and a plate of cookies. While her eyes were still red, Bella looked more calm than she had been.   
“Off to bed now, BellaMina,” Mavis said. “Up early tomorrow.”   
When Bella had gone back upstairs, Mavis smiled at her husband.   
“Well, with 5 kids, that’s hardly the first night you didn’t get to carry me to bed and …”   
“you’ll never know where, you’ll never know when,” when he sounded like that, Mavis thought, he never failed to make her smile, no matter how upsetting things were just now.   
“I’ll be there, whenever you say. Thanks for waking Bella from that nightmare.”   
“Penny did part of the job for me,” he said.   
“Again. That’s what she was trying to do when we came in last night.”   
“When we got her, I never imagined we would find her trying to wake one of our children out of a nightmare.”   
“Did you know, Dallas is thinking about a puppy for her boys?”   
“Is she?”   
“Yeah, she texted me while Bella was giving her statement earlier today. She didn’t want to talk about it and have Bella spill it to the boys before she’s good and ready to let them have one.”   
“And that’s what Bella would have done. We both know it. Give her the number for the breeder where we got Penny.”  
“I’ll call her at work tomorrow.”   
“Now tell me, Do you recall where we were before your daughter interrupted us?”   
“Now she’s mine, is she,” Mavis said, smiling. “It seems to me I had an accomplice, and an eager one at that.”   
“You did at that. We can figure out where we were. Then, Let’s see if Bella and Penny give us a few hours rest.”


End file.
